10-17-2007, 01:26 AM
Lord of the Rings: The Ents of Fangorn
ERIC RIDLEY looks at a new expansion set ...
ENTS OF FANGORN is the sixth set for the incredibly popular Lord of the Rings CCG. The 128-card set focuses on the battle between the Ents and Saruman's Isengard fortress as seen in the second film. Ents first appeared in the Battle of Helms Deep expansion, but it was only Treebeard that made an appearance and even then he was restricted to being an ally. Now a whole slew of kindling waiting to happen is here. Most of the Ents seen in the film are represented along with many other themes and strategies.
As with previous sets there are the obligatory new versions of old characters, resplendent with new abilities, artefacts and weapons. Most impressive to Timmy power gamer, will be the new version of Gandalf. With a power of ten and wielding a constant +1 damage bonus he can make short work of any wouldbe vagabond/footpad. The cost of this incredible power? Gandalf takes one wound every time the fellowship moves on. With a vitality of 4, you can't allow Gandalf to get wounded even once or he is toast before he reaches the next sanctuary. To compound the misery for the bad guys there is also a new version of his sword, Glamdring, Lightning Brand. It bestows upon its wielder +2 in battle, but more importantly it gives an additional +1 damage: combine this with its ability to make Gandalf a further +1 damage for every spell he casts during the skirmish phase and he is unstoppable.
Other new cards are Galadriel, Keeper of Nenya, Arwen, Evenstar of her people and Elrond, Keeper of Vilya. Elrond and Arwen work together nicely. Elrond can take damage for Arwen and make the minion she is skirmishing -1. Elrond heals at the beginning of each turn. It is a nice combo that reflects the father-daughter relationship between the two. Decipher is really excellent at making mechanics that mirror the source material.
One of the nicest surprises in the set for me is the new Balrog, Terror of Flame and Shadow. It is damage +2 but it is not fierce. Easy come easy go I guess, the thing that makes it awesome though is the fact you no longer need an underground site to play it. Flame grilled Gandalf anywhere on the path.
The real stand out of the set is Aragorn, Defender of the Free Peoples. His card title represents his abilities. Remove an Elf token to make a minion strength -3. If you use this ability in conjunction with cards like Agility, which gives you elf tokens, you can really start to hack down even the biggest foe. I have also been reliably informed that the picture on the card is 'gorgeous' that he himself is 'gorgeous' and 'isn't he just gorgeous?'. Other abilities are the Dwarf-based talent of healing the little buggers by removing tokens. During the regroup phase he can remove a Rohan token to wound a minion twice, but only if Aragorn is mounted. It seems that if used correctly Aragorn can be too powerful and can be abused. In casual play this shouldn't be so much of a problem but as soon as tournament players get a hold of it he will become an almighty killing machine capable of destroying Middle Earth and taking the one ring for himself. Mwahahahahahaha!
Onto the bad guys. The Isengard Orcs have a nasty new ability to discard other orcs from your hand during the regroup phase to cause the fellowship to wound a companion. If you load up your deck with them you should be able to kill a companion per turn. To make matters worse there are a few conditions that allow you to do even more damage even after discarding the orcs from your hand.
The Nazghul have a few new additions. The Starter Deck only premium card of 'The Witch King, Deathless Lord' is huge, and something to be feared. It has a strength of 14 and is fierce: it only costs 8 to play and if/when kill a companion with him the fellowship must exert a companion. Again it seems as if this card is just a little too powerful. But it certainly is fun to flop down and terrify your opponent with.
Finally we move onto the expansions namesake: The Ents. This is the first set to give you them as companions not just allies. Treebeard is obviously the most recognised and he is represented here fairly well. He has a twilight cost of 5 and a power of 12. He is very big and very expensive. However your problems aren't solved once you slap him down: to make him fight you must exert an unbound Hobbit. This means that you have to have plenty of Hobbits and are able to have them take wounds. The rest of the Ents are fairly unremarkable. They are big and strong and they work best in a bunch, but aside from that there is nothing special about them.
The set as a whole is a lot of fun. It strikes me as a set that would appeal to a lot of casual players: big monsters, big weapons and a new version of almost every one. It is a good starting point for people wanting to jump in. In terms of how useful it will be in tournament play, I imagine it will shake the place up a little/a lot and make the game more dynamic and larger. The themes and abilities match those seen in the film. The card images are sharp and the printing is perfect. It does, however, seem to suffer from the arms race problem that so many CCG's do. It is a constant battle to make the cards from the new set more desirable than the previous ones. Hence gigantic cards and crazy strong abilities.
Before this set was released my love for the LOTR CCG was waning a little. This set came along and rekindled my passion for it; it gave me a lot of fun too. Not without a price, however. In terms of collecting the set, I bought a box of boosters and two starter decks. This set me back more than a hundred quid but I did end up with the whole set bar four cards. The absconders were quickly picked up on Ebay for a total of about a tenner. It is expensive but not all devouring. Just give the curries and scud mags a miss this week and you should be fine.
Favourite Cards: Gandalf, Glamdhring and the Balrog (I am such a munchkin).
Wasted Cards: Spied from Above (all cards have some use in a specific situation, but this one really struggles).
LotR: Ents of Fangorn at a glance
This new CCG expansion adds more play options to existing strategies and cultures, sets up the open environment for the introduction of the Return of the King gameplay, and adds powerful new options for key Fellowship-block strategies. Among the many new challenges introduced in this expansion are a new Treebeard to lead the Ents into battle against Isengard, Gate Trolls to patrol the Black gates of Mordor, and the Isengard Orcs to assert a potent defence against the Ents.
ERIC RIDLEY looks at a new expansion set ...
ENTS OF FANGORN is the sixth set for the incredibly popular Lord of the Rings CCG. The 128-card set focuses on the battle between the Ents and Saruman's Isengard fortress as seen in the second film. Ents first appeared in the Battle of Helms Deep expansion, but it was only Treebeard that made an appearance and even then he was restricted to being an ally. Now a whole slew of kindling waiting to happen is here. Most of the Ents seen in the film are represented along with many other themes and strategies.
As with previous sets there are the obligatory new versions of old characters, resplendent with new abilities, artefacts and weapons. Most impressive to Timmy power gamer, will be the new version of Gandalf. With a power of ten and wielding a constant +1 damage bonus he can make short work of any wouldbe vagabond/footpad. The cost of this incredible power? Gandalf takes one wound every time the fellowship moves on. With a vitality of 4, you can't allow Gandalf to get wounded even once or he is toast before he reaches the next sanctuary. To compound the misery for the bad guys there is also a new version of his sword, Glamdring, Lightning Brand. It bestows upon its wielder +2 in battle, but more importantly it gives an additional +1 damage: combine this with its ability to make Gandalf a further +1 damage for every spell he casts during the skirmish phase and he is unstoppable.
Other new cards are Galadriel, Keeper of Nenya, Arwen, Evenstar of her people and Elrond, Keeper of Vilya. Elrond and Arwen work together nicely. Elrond can take damage for Arwen and make the minion she is skirmishing -1. Elrond heals at the beginning of each turn. It is a nice combo that reflects the father-daughter relationship between the two. Decipher is really excellent at making mechanics that mirror the source material.
One of the nicest surprises in the set for me is the new Balrog, Terror of Flame and Shadow. It is damage +2 but it is not fierce. Easy come easy go I guess, the thing that makes it awesome though is the fact you no longer need an underground site to play it. Flame grilled Gandalf anywhere on the path.
The real stand out of the set is Aragorn, Defender of the Free Peoples. His card title represents his abilities. Remove an Elf token to make a minion strength -3. If you use this ability in conjunction with cards like Agility, which gives you elf tokens, you can really start to hack down even the biggest foe. I have also been reliably informed that the picture on the card is 'gorgeous' that he himself is 'gorgeous' and 'isn't he just gorgeous?'. Other abilities are the Dwarf-based talent of healing the little buggers by removing tokens. During the regroup phase he can remove a Rohan token to wound a minion twice, but only if Aragorn is mounted. It seems that if used correctly Aragorn can be too powerful and can be abused. In casual play this shouldn't be so much of a problem but as soon as tournament players get a hold of it he will become an almighty killing machine capable of destroying Middle Earth and taking the one ring for himself. Mwahahahahahaha!
Onto the bad guys. The Isengard Orcs have a nasty new ability to discard other orcs from your hand during the regroup phase to cause the fellowship to wound a companion. If you load up your deck with them you should be able to kill a companion per turn. To make matters worse there are a few conditions that allow you to do even more damage even after discarding the orcs from your hand.
The Nazghul have a few new additions. The Starter Deck only premium card of 'The Witch King, Deathless Lord' is huge, and something to be feared. It has a strength of 14 and is fierce: it only costs 8 to play and if/when kill a companion with him the fellowship must exert a companion. Again it seems as if this card is just a little too powerful. But it certainly is fun to flop down and terrify your opponent with.
Finally we move onto the expansions namesake: The Ents. This is the first set to give you them as companions not just allies. Treebeard is obviously the most recognised and he is represented here fairly well. He has a twilight cost of 5 and a power of 12. He is very big and very expensive. However your problems aren't solved once you slap him down: to make him fight you must exert an unbound Hobbit. This means that you have to have plenty of Hobbits and are able to have them take wounds. The rest of the Ents are fairly unremarkable. They are big and strong and they work best in a bunch, but aside from that there is nothing special about them.
The set as a whole is a lot of fun. It strikes me as a set that would appeal to a lot of casual players: big monsters, big weapons and a new version of almost every one. It is a good starting point for people wanting to jump in. In terms of how useful it will be in tournament play, I imagine it will shake the place up a little/a lot and make the game more dynamic and larger. The themes and abilities match those seen in the film. The card images are sharp and the printing is perfect. It does, however, seem to suffer from the arms race problem that so many CCG's do. It is a constant battle to make the cards from the new set more desirable than the previous ones. Hence gigantic cards and crazy strong abilities.
Before this set was released my love for the LOTR CCG was waning a little. This set came along and rekindled my passion for it; it gave me a lot of fun too. Not without a price, however. In terms of collecting the set, I bought a box of boosters and two starter decks. This set me back more than a hundred quid but I did end up with the whole set bar four cards. The absconders were quickly picked up on Ebay for a total of about a tenner. It is expensive but not all devouring. Just give the curries and scud mags a miss this week and you should be fine.
Favourite Cards: Gandalf, Glamdhring and the Balrog (I am such a munchkin).
Wasted Cards: Spied from Above (all cards have some use in a specific situation, but this one really struggles).
LotR: Ents of Fangorn at a glance
This new CCG expansion adds more play options to existing strategies and cultures, sets up the open environment for the introduction of the Return of the King gameplay, and adds powerful new options for key Fellowship-block strategies. Among the many new challenges introduced in this expansion are a new Treebeard to lead the Ents into battle against Isengard, Gate Trolls to patrol the Black gates of Mordor, and the Isengard Orcs to assert a potent defence against the Ents.
Eric Ridley
2004-12-06
2004-12-06